Washington: IBM has announced that South Bend, Indiana is using its Intelligent Operations Center (IOC) for Smarter Cities software-as-a-service (SaaS), to dramatically overhaul its water management system, preserving public health and saving the city hundreds of millions of dollars.
South Bend is the first city in the world to manage its water systems in the cloud.
It is the fourth largest city in Indiana with more than 500,000 residents.
The University of Notre Dame is helping the city with research and early development of a system that helps proactively manage combined sewer monitoring and control, one of the biggest resource issues for cities around the world.
Like many municipalities, South Bend is faced with an aging sewer infrastructure and challenged with maintaining the quality of life including safeguarding the health of its citizens and the environment.
Sixty percent of water allocated for domestic human use goes to urban cities. In the US alone, there are approximately 800 cities facing $65 billion in environmental infrastructure costs to solve these issues.